Luke Delaney - The Rule of Fear

‘Looks like you were right,’ he smiled.

‘Oh yeah,’ she asked. ‘About what?’

‘About this place being a prison,’ he told her.

Her eyes rolled as she unwittingly examined the bars in front of her. ‘Maybe,’ she replied, ‘but if you ever want to stand on this side of the bars, you’d better have a warrant. Know what I mean?’ She winked and closed the door before he could answer.

She was right about one thing , he thought to himself. Word really did travel fast on the estate .

A short time later King met up with Renita to patrol the estate together looking for trouble. As they headed down a huge vehicle ramp that led to dozens of underground garages, King spotted a large piece of plastic wall hanging a little looser than the other panels on the bottom section of a low-rise row of flats and maisonettes. He stepped towards it and pulled it even looser and peered inside the bowels of the building.

‘Someone’s pulled this loose deliberately,’ he told Renita. ‘Wonder where it leads to.’

‘Probably the basement area of the building,’ she guessed. ‘It’ll be where the water tanks and electrical stuff is all kept. Everything will be pumped into here before being fed out to the flats.’

‘So why would somebody want to break inside?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Why don’t we see if we can find out?’

He pulled the loose panel to one side so she could more easily enter. ‘Ladies first,’ he grinned.

‘Well thank you,’ she joked. ‘You’re such a gentleman.’

She clambered through the small gap into the semi-darkness and watched as King did the same. They both un-holstered their Maglite torches from their utility belts, instantly illuminating their surroundings, and realized they were in some sort of corridor with dozens of pipes running above their heads and along the walls next to them. Underneath their feet was nothing but cold concrete lit by the occasional safety light glowing red.

‘Christ,’ Renita complained. ‘It’s like being in a bloody submarine.’

‘Not a side of the estate most people would ever see,’ he replied, squinting as he followed the beam of light from his torch. ‘Want to split up like they do in American horror movies?’ he teased her.

‘No I bloody don’t,’ she told him. ‘Place gives me the creeps.’

‘This way then,’ he encouraged her and headed off along the corridor, following the long cones of light that stretched out ahead of them as they walked deeper and deeper into the strange underground world until the thin corridor suddenly and unexpectedly opened out into a cavernous room where there was a little more light from the weak overhead strips and seemingly grey metal box after grey metal box attached to the surrounding walls.

‘Wow,’ Renita declared. ‘What d’you think’s in the boxes? There’s hundreds of them.’

‘Not sure,’ King answered, his torch sweeping every corner of the room. ‘Probably the electrical circuit boards for the block.’

‘Amazing,’ she admitted. ‘You wouldn’t want to be the one to try and find the blown fuse if electrics failed.’

‘No,’ King agreed as he drifted to a corner where something had caught his eyes in the torchlight. ‘I suppose not.’

‘You found something?’ Renita asked, slowly following him.

‘Over here,’ he told her as he passed his light over the arrangement of old sofa cushions, homemade stools and a crate that was clearly being used as a makeshift table, littered as it was with the remnants of drug use and alcohol consumption.

‘Christ,’ Renita surveyed the scene. ‘Lovely place to talk the night away with friends.’

King bent closer to better examine the items strewn across the table. ‘Don’t be too harsh on them,’ he told her. ‘Looks like cannabis and alco-pops – nothing too heavy. Probably just kids looking for somewhere to hang out of the rain and away from their parents.’

‘Speaking from experience?’ she asked.

‘I was a kid once,’ he answered.

‘Hard to believe,’ she replied, trying to sound serious.

‘Still,’ he ignored her, ‘can’t have them hanging around off their faces down here. Only a matter of time before they start a fire and burn the whole bloody block down.’

‘Idea?’ she prompted him.

‘Hope you brought a good book,’ he told her.

‘Ahh,’ she complained. ‘You’re not serious, are you? You want to wait down here until someone shows up? Could be hours. Could be days.’

‘We’re not going to wait down here for days,’ he began to explain.

‘Good, because this place still gives me the creeps.’

‘But let’s give it a while.’

‘Fine,’ she reluctantly agreed and followed him to the darkest corner of the basement room where they prepared to lie in wait for whatever came their way.

Susie Ubana sat in her kitchen waiting for someone to answer the number she’d called on her untraceable pay-as-you-go mobile phone. Eventually a man’s voice spoke cautiously.

‘Hello.’

‘It’s me,’ she replied.

There was slight pause before the man spoke again. ‘What do you want?’ he asked without any politeness or subtlety.

She drew deeply on her cigarette, exhaling as she spoke. ‘We may have a problem.’

‘Go on,’ he told her.

‘These new cops on the estate – the one in charge,’ she explained, ‘I think he’s planning on upsetting things around here.’

There was a long silence before the voice spoke again. ‘Can he be persuaded ?’

‘Not like that,’ she assured him. ‘He’s young. Clean. Untainted. He still has … ideals .’

‘Do I need to do something right now?’ he asked.

She sighed before answering. ‘No. Let me keep an eye on him – for now.’

‘OK,’ the man agreed casually. ‘But keep me informed.’ The line went dead before she could answer.

‘Shit,’ she cursed under her breath before taking a long pull on her cigarette.

King and Renita waited silently in the dark shadows of the corner, their eyes well adjusted to the dim light. The sound of distant laughter made them look at each other as they visibly tensed, but as the noise grew louder and closer they realized it was more giggling than laughing – the sound of children. Soon they could hear their footsteps as well as their voices talking softly to one another as they filed into the opening and took what appeared to be their usual places on the stools and cushions; their conversation grew a little louder and coarser as they became increasingly confident they were alone.

‘Now,’ Renita whispered in his ear.

‘Not yet,’ he hissed back as he watched the five children aged between twelve and fourteen empty their pockets onto the table making a communal display of cigarette papers, lighters and broken cigarettes. The youngest-looking child pulled something too small to see from his trouser pocket and began to fiddle with it. King guessed what it was and what he was doing, but still he waited until he could be sure.

He didn’t have to wait long before the boy began to heat whatever it was he was holding over the small flame of a lighter, immediately filling the basement with the smell of softening cannabis resin, but still they waited until he crumbled the resin into the waiting tobacco on a paper bed that another boy rolled and ignited with his own lighter. King tapped Renita on the shoulder and stepped out into the space, clicking his torch on and half blinding the youngsters. They looked to one another in terror before trying to scramble to their feet, but King and Renita were already on top of them.

‘Police!’ King half shouted, before lowering his tone. ‘Everybody stay where you are.’